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DISCOURSE 



SOCIAL AND MOEAL ADVANTAGES 



CULTIVATION OF LOCAL LITERATURE. 



BY 

WILLIAM T. COGGESHALL, 

OHIO STATE UBKARUN. 



Delivered before the Beta Theta Pi Society of Ohio University 
at the 54th Commencemeiit, June 22d, 1858. 



/ 



COLUMBUS, OHIO: 

T E R 

1859. 









THE WEST AND ITS LITERATURE. 




'HEN I was invited to stand in this place to-night, 
distrusting my fitness for such a position, I could not 
accept the responsibility it would impose, until I had 
determined the purpose of a Discourse. 

It was with great diffidence and deep embarrassment, I seri- 
ously took up that question. I could not be mistaken in the 
character of the audience to which I would speak. I was in- 
vited by a Literary Society composed of young men, who are 
soon, with cultivated minds and willing hands, to go forth into 
the world to forge out careers for themselves. I knew that my 
voice would be heard within the walls of the first general Insti- 
tution of Learning provided for, by the liberal foresight of Con- 
gress, in the Great West. Bearing in mind that this Institution 
seeks to develop character becoming the vigor and independ- 
ence of prosperous intelligence, I was led to reflect whether it 
would not be peculiarly appropriate to plead before the Students 
and Teachers, the thinkers and workers, here assembled, the 
advantages of cultivating a Literature in the West,, which will 
represent its history and its capacities — its people*,^heir oppor- 
tunities and their purposes. 

When I had decided upon that theme, I did not fear an im- 
putation of " sectionalism." Literature which lives represents 
the spirit of a people. In that sense it must be " sectional," or 
local ; in a word, native. 



4 ADISCOURSE. 

From the earliest Hebrew, Chaldaic, or Egyptian records, 
through Grecian, Roman, German, Spanish, French or English, 
"sectionalism" has been a vitalizing power — sectionalism, not a^ 
a subservient spirit devoted to selfish purposes for narrow ends, 
but truthfulness to the animating characteristics of thought and 
action among an individual people. 

Plato and Demosthenes, Caesar and Cicero, Luther and Cal- 
vin, Shakspeare and Goethe, Voltaire and Calderon, Milton and 
Moliere, were " sectionalists." So are Bryant and Longfellow, 
Bancroft and Irving, Willis and Cooper. American literature 
was unrecognized, in the world's highest courts of criticism, half 
a century ago, because it was not pervaded with the special char- 
acteristics of the forming nation. Western literature, though in 
a lively degree representing Pioneer men and Pioneer times, 
has been disregarded, as a distinct power, in the general interest 
for welcome to whatever, springing out of seaboard cities, has 
been creditable to the national character. 

Let us inquire why. 

It is a law of mental and physical philosophy, that the char- 
acter of a people depends greatly upon the advantages, or disad- 
vantages, of the country it inhabits. 

The most favorable natural condition for the healthful devel- 
opment of a people, is in a climate and upon a soil which require, 
but which generously reward, judicious industry. 

That is the character, preeminently, of the soil and climate 
■which have attracted emigrants from all quarters of the globe to 

" The land of the West, green forest land/' 

fitly apostrophized by William D. Gallagher as the 

" Clime of the fair and the immense, 
Favorite of Nature's liberal hand, 
And child of her munificence." 

Its mountains and valleys and plains — its great rivers and inland 
seas, bless a people, whose ancestry had peculiar incentives to 



A DISC OURS E. 

industry — who, with mental cultivation, braving peril and depri- 
vation, vigorously started a new life. Having no use for the 
conventionalities to which they had been accustomed, they could 
afford manners and customs becoming their new relations, and, 
consequently, it is said with truth, that western men are frank, 
generous, prompt ; perhaps rude ; it may be rough, according to 
the rules of polite society. 

Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton, Davy Crockett and George 
Rogers Clark, Rufus Putnam and William Henry Harrison, 
were types of the character which fought the Indians, hunted the 
bear and the deer and the buffalo, conquered the wilderness, and 
organized States. 

The antithesis of characteristics which distinguished their 
public lives, were not more deeply marked than the contrasts to 
have been met, in camps and circles, never known out of the 
forest or the settlement. Heroism, in the sense of self-sacrificing 
devotion to a definite purpose, was a necessity of pioneer life ; 
and self-reliance shone as an eminent characteristic of Western 
Society, when general observation was first attracted to it as an 
element in national councils. 

The social history of the early West exposes need of culture, 
but it evinces virtue, and its political history evinces wisdom. 
Consequently its amazingly augmenting power can be explained 
as clearly as a mathematical problem. Self-reliant industry 
upon a generous soil, shaded by hills and forests, brightened by 
navigable rivers — social virtue and political wisdom — these won 
the epithet great for the West, and upon these does security for 
the worthiness of that epithet depend, in whatever respect it 
may be used, not implying extent of domain. 

It is said that a frontier merchant is at once recognized in 
New York, by his self-reliance, his independence ; it may be, 
his rude generosity. The half-horse, half-alligator caricatures of 
Western peculiarities which have prevailed, had a natural sig- 
nificance in the stamp pioneer life gave its inheritors. 



6 ADISCOURSE. 

When a thorough-bred Yankee, a regular down-Easter, comes 
" out west," with his cautious care of sixpences, he is as surely 
known as a fresh Hollander, or an Irishman with brogans ; and, 
not until he is so transformed that he can speak as if he were 
not afraid of wasting his voice, does he cease to be an object of 
scrutiny. 

It is well worthy of remark, that while Western Society is 
required to harmonize countless conflicting peculiarities, which 
accompany emigrants from all quarters of the globe, it so far 
preserves its original force of character, that it is competent to 
liberalize the shrewd New Englander, who, after forty years' 
wear and tear on a sterile farm, or in a narrow counting-house, 
comes West, with a long face, deploring the necessity of relin- 
quishing good society for the companionship of wide corn-fields, 
fat oxen, big pigs and land warrants, or town lots and railway 
scrip. 

But the modification of character which overcomes the immi- 
grant in the West, is owing in a great degree to an influence 
which always underlies progress. It exists in distrust for the 
past and hope for the future, inspiring a willingness to adopt and 
encourage whatever promises prosperity. 

This influence led the earliest pioneer, and it leads the latest 
immigrant, if he comes hither for good purpose. In the language 
of a writer who has studied the history of the West, and who 
appreciates her opportunities : * 

" What, till within a few years past, the onward-coming mul- 
titudes have found on arriving here, has been, chiefly, physical 
sufficiency, great intellectual expertness, a degree of moral inde- 
pendence wholly new to them, and capacity for almost indefinite 
extension, either morally, intellectually or physically. Coming 
in upon us by hundreds and thousands, as they now are and for 
years have been, their gentler and fiercer passions, like meadow 

* William D. Gallagher — Historical Address, 18—. 



ADISCOURSE. .? 

rivulets and mountain torrents, mixing in with and modifying 
our own, and their art, science and literature, their hard-hand- 
edness and willing-heartedness, and their experiences of life 
generally giving to and receiving from ours new impulses and 
new directions, the whole soon to flow together in one common 
stream of Humanity, which will be found irresistible by any 
barriers that may oppose its course, must inevitably give new 
and peculiar aspects to the region and the era wherein it holds 
its way. * * * * 

" Out of the crude materials, collected and collecting in the 
North-West — materials that are just now taking forms of sym- 
metry, and exhibiting a homogeneousness that has not heretofore 
belonged to them — are to come arts and institutions and educa- 
tions better fitted for the uses and enjoyments of man, and more 
promotive of those high developments that are within the 
capacities of his nature, than anything which the world has yet 
seen. * * * 

" Here, on this magnificent domain — this undulating plain — 
that extends from the beautiful bases o^f the Allegheny Mount- 
ains to the broad, fertile shores of the Mississippi River, and 
stretches its arms from near the 36th quite to the 42d degree of 
north latitude — are in time to be witnessed the freest forms of 
social development, and the highest order of human civilization." 

Enthusiasm animated the pen of the writer whose words I 
have quoted, but it was enthusiasm tempered by judgment ; it 
grew out of a liberal estimate of natural opportunity. 

The conditions of the superior human advancement, possible, 
in the lapse of time, through that opportunity, depend on well- 
directed industry, humanitary ingenuity and political wisdom ; 
but all of these depend upon social characteristics, for upon social 
characteristics — upon domestic life — in the widest degree, rest 
the morals of a people ; and the morals of a people are purified 
or corrupted by their literature — the literature they produce. 

The world's history is marked by periods to which literature 



8 A DI SCOURS E. 

gave character, and these periods are among the brightest on the 
scroll of Time. Songs and Poems, Orations and Histories, with 
their encouragements and warnings, are valued in all influential 
society, with higher and deeper reverence than whatever else 
the proudest nations produced. They are not only inspiring for 
themselves, but they preserve whatever was inspiring among the 
people from whom they proceeded. 

The record of the world's action, as it appears in monuments 
or mausoleums, in pagodas or palaces, in pyramids or temples, 
does not teach that honor and usefulness are what men should 
have ambition for. These noble lessons lie in the literature, 
spoken from the pulpit, on the rostrum or in the forum, upon the 
highway or in the cloister, which, through its agents, that now 
search every cabin, the Printing Press, reproduces and renews. 

Books are the most enduring of human possessions. Litera- 
ture is alone, of human instrumentalities, a pervading spirit 
which Time cannot destroy — a spirit which animated tradition 
when time, with man, was young, and took form and comeliness 
in poetry and history — a spirit for which ingenuity has toiled 
through all the centuries of the past, and to which the highest 
forms of human aspiration now do reverence. 

Nature's affinities are not monopolized in the natural sciences. 
The mental as well as the material world has its attractions and 
its repulsions. Literature, in the broadest sense, is the medium 
of their transmission from one man — from one age or from one 
nation to another. 

Music has tones which act responsive to peculiar human emo- 
tions, and so has Literature; but there are melodies which 
inspire all humanity, and there are literary utterances which 
find echo wherever there is a human heart. These utterances 
are among the surest evidences of the cultivation of the right 
spirit of literature by a people, but often they burst forth in 
signal rebuke of indifference to that spirit. 

Greece and Rome, England and France, Germany and Spain, 



A DISCOURS E. 9 

through their authors, have quiet homes of love and respect in 
the hearts of the cultivated every where. Neither successful 
warriors, nor shrewd diplomats, nor wise statesmen, have as 
general respect as standard writers ; nor doe^ mechanism, nor 
even the art of the printer or the sculptor, hold rank, in univer- 
sality of recognition, with literature. It is the servant of the 
Statesman and the Artist, the Artisan and the Agriculturist; 
and that their uses and •purposes, their glories and beauties, may 
be fully appreciated, every people aspiring to greatness must 
cultivate literature. Just appreciation will prevent it from be- 
coming the slave of whatever is bad in politics or war, of what- 
ever is a defamation of Art; consequently all the questions 
which affect the prosperity and happiness of a people, enter into 
their cultivation of a literature. 

The citizen who is sensitive to his varied obligations, recog- 
nizes a duty in the support of all the instrumentalities of instruc- 
tion, and he knows literature, in even its technical sense, to be 
among the most important. The good man lives in conscious- 
ness of obligations to good literature, which cannot be dissevered 
from his duties to family, church, and government. 

The solidarity of a literature is not established in a genera- 
tion. Poetry, History, or Romance, Science or Belles Lettres, 
may have representatives, within the first age of a people, whose 
individuality is distinct ; but each and all must gain recognition, 
independently of the people from which they spring, before it 
can be said that a national literature exists. It is not enough, 
either, that a national literature exists. It is required of a 
nation, which combines wide differences of characteristics, that 
each shall have its own representation. 

A Republic of letters may be a confederacy of individualities, 
as well as that a Republic in politics may be a confederacy of 
States. 

In Commerce, in Mechanics, in Agriculture, in Politics, the 
"West has recognized individuality; but the poetry, romance, 



10 ADISCOUKSE. 

and history peculiar to it — inspired by its natural advantages — 
woven into its traditions — developed in its settlement — do not 
significantly animate a literature which the popular will accredits. 

Tomahawks and wigwams, sharp-shooting and hard fights, log 
cabins, rough speech, dare-devil boldness, bear-hunting and 
corn-husking, prairie flowers, bandits, lynch-law and no-law-at- 
all, miscellaneously mixed into "25 cent novels," printed on 
poor paper and stitched between yellow covers, represent the 
popular idea of Western Literature. 

Two years ago, on a steamboat trip down the Ohio River, I 
met a young man fresh from a counting-house in Rhode Island. 
He was a very intelligent young man, in the general acceptation 
of that phrase, but he had many stupid opinions about the West. 
He learned that I was from Cincinnati, and he was curious to 
know all about Porkopolis. In perfect candor, and " only for 
information," he deliberately asked me whether the noise and 
stench, occasioned by the immense slaughter of hogs, did not 
make life in the city almost intolerable. I discovered, in con- 
versation with him, that he imagined Porkopolis to be composed, 
in about equal proportion, of pig pens and poorly constructed 
business and dwelling houses. Reasoning from what he had 
seen of hog-killing in the town-yards of Yankee land, he sup- 
posed that the citizens of the great metropolis for ham and 
bacon, must dwell in the midst of alarms to eye and ear and 
nose. His idea of Cincinnati was just about as intelligent as 
that entertained by most people concerning what literature the 
West has failed to encourage. 

For the popular opinion, that whatever individuality Western 
Literature has, belongs to the shock-your-nerves, excite-your- 
wonder school, there are two prominent reasons : First, because 
that opinion agrees with the popular idea of pioneer life ; sec- 
ond, because the descendants, or successors, of the early pioneers 
have not endeavored to maintain an individual or home litera- 
ture of a higher character. 



A DISC OURS E. 11 

If any poem, or oration, or history, or romance, or essay, has 
given honor to the West, it was a spontaneous production, in 
defiance to public indifference, and it failed to disturb that indif- 
ference until New York or London had pronounced upon it. 

The pioneers were not always men of culture; but they were 
not merely hunters, who could only appreciate the merits of a 
rifle, or take delight in "bear signs" and "deer tracks." They 
were brave, intelligent men, capable of culture, and when social 
circles could be encouraged in their settlements, they demanded 
literature. In young cities, men of hope and trust presumed 
upon this demand, and newspapers were issued, and magazines 
w^ere printed, and books were published ; but the pioneer looked 
out of the woods for every thing which his simple habits requir- 
ed, excepting grain and meat. He would not believe that the 
forest could give him literature. His affections were with the 
bookstores, and at the printing offices he had known in his youth; 
consequently the western authors, printers and publishers, were 
left to act the part of pioneers, in fields supporting a thick 
growth of prejudice, which had to be cleared away before con- 
fidence could be cultivated. 

The society of young towns and cities and farms waited to 
see whether young newspapers and young editors and young 
publishers would succeed or not, and it witnessed melancholy 
failures which but served to confirm the prejudice that crushed 
out hope and paralyzed enterprise. 

Many of the unsuccessful did not understand their own 
powers, nor what their enterprises required ; but there were 
among them men and women, who, with fair encouragement, 
would long ago have secured the West a recognized place of 
honor in the literary history of America. 

The first literary center in the West w^as Cincinnati. There 
the first new spaper ever published in our great inland valley 
made its appearance on the 9th day of November, 1793. Cin- 
cinnati was then five years old, and contained about 500 inhab- 



12 ADISCOURSE. 

itants. The first book written and printed in the North- West was 
published at Cincinnati in 1809. Between the years 1811 and 
1815, there were twelve books, averaging about 200 pages each, 
printed in the Queen City. In 1819 the North- West had its first 
literary journal. It was called the Literary Cadet, and appeared 
on the 22d day of November, in the year mentioned, (1819). 
Only twenty-three numbers of the Cadet were issued. In 1824 
Cincinnati had a second literary paper^ and it has had thirteen 
since, all of which are dead. 

The first literary magazine of the Great West appeared at 
Lexington, Kentucky, in 1819, and in 1827 the second was pro- 
jected at Cincinnati, in which city seventeen have since died. 

Of all the books published in the West between 1800 and 
1854, not one attained national success ; but works by western 
authors, published at the east, have been universally popular. 
To the present generation there is not known one in a hundred 
of the names that have been linked with the valuable in the 
writings of the valley of the Ohio and Mississippi during thirty 
years past. 

Those who are familiar with the magazines and newspapers 
that failed, or those whose experiences of life reach into the 
pioneer period, have recollections of which they are proud ; but 
a majority of the present citizens of Ohio or Kentucky or Indi- 
ana or Illinois or Michigan, have quite as little knowledge of the 
real merit of the literature of the past in the West as they have 
of the color or condition of the people who constructed the 
mounds of 

"The region of sunset." 

Within a period of ten years, counting backward and forward 
from 1830, there existed a literary circle of which Cincinnati 
was the center, which, as a whole, has never had a superior in 
America. 

Among those who were influential in that circle, I may men- 



ADISCOURSE. 13 

tion the names of William Henry Harrison, Timothy Flint, 
Micah P. Flint, Daniel Drake, James Hall, Jacob Burnet, Ben- 
jamin F. Drake, Edward D. Mansfield, William D. Gallagher, 
Otway Curry, S. P. Hildreth, L. A. Hine, Caroline Lee Hentz, 
Rebecca S. Nichols, Thos. H. Shreve, F. W. Thomas, Lyman 
Beecher, Charles Hammond, Elisha Whittlesey, Albert Pike, 
L. J. Cist, James H. Perkins, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Eliza A. 
Dupuy, Amelia Welby, Sarah T. Bolton, and John B. Dillon. 
These names, and others I could call, are familiar to all intel- 
ligent persons, but that their owners made valiant, though vain 
effort for literary support in the West twenty-five years ago, is 
a fact unacknowledged in the public mind. It is a popular say- 
ing that 

" Westward the star of Empire takes its way." 

The history of the world shows that he who uttered that say- 
ing was a philosopher as well as a poet. But literary history 
in the West teaches that the westward marching look back for 
civilization, and that by example, if not by precept, they teach 
their children to look for literary as w' ell as natural light toward 
sunrise. Therefore does it happen now-a-days, that stars which 
rise with a dim lustre in the literary or dramatic or artistic 
world of the east, become luminaries of the first magnitude when 
they deign to shine on our valleys. 

The religion of the Persians, who worship the god of day, has 
devotees in show, if not in substance, in the western hemis- 
phere, for though we do not worship the sun as a divine emblem, 
we cultivate the idea of an association of mental with material 
illumination in our disparagement of the occidental and our ex- 
pectancy concerning the oriental. 

There is a popular notion that the western sections of a city 
are more healthful than the eastern, because currents of air are 
continually wafting the smoke and dust eastward. Whether 
this be true as a principle of hygiene or not, it is true that cur- 



14 A DIS C OUR S E. 

rents of thought run eastward which carry reward and encour- 
agement away from the toiling in shops and offices, in studios 
and libraries, to the detriment, not only of literature in the 
ideal, but of morals and industry in the actual. 

In the year 1839, James H. Perkins contributed to the New 
York Review an article on "Western Literature," in which he 
said : 

"The first thing that strikes us is the amount of foreign liter- 
ature. Not a novel of any note comes from the London press 
but may be met with everywhere, from Pittsburgh to the Yellow- 
stone — from New Orleans to the falls of St. Anthony. Byron 
thought it something like fame to be read in America, but in 
our day it proves no merit in a writer that his works circulate 
to the Rocky Mountains. * * * * Most of this foreign 
literature comes from eastern publishers, and is, of course, the 
same which they circulate in the Atlantic States. 

"The chief reading of the stirring men of the West relates 
to stirring men. * * * Western ta?te demands something 
which tells of men of life, of battle, of suffering, of heroism, skill 
and wisdom, or else something which addresses man*s highest 
nature, his holiest and deepest feelings. * * * The west- 
ern people love western history, not the history of the common 
events of civil life, of laws, treaties and hum-drum times of 
peace ; but of the stirring frontier incidents ; of the struggles of 
the backwoodsman. * * * Having a knowledge of the 
prevalent love of the mass, western writers have almost buried 
the truly noble leaders of the pioneer bands under reiterated 
accounts of their doings, and yet, a full, living, trustworthy ac- 
count of those men, such an one as ought to be written, is 
wanting." 

Mr. Perkins wrote truly, and the want to which he referred 
has not yet been supplied, chiefly because the people have 
oftenest applauded and most liberally rewarded those of their 
own authors, who aim to construct highly-wrought legends or 



A DISCOURSE. 15 

romances, or who speculate glowingly upon astonishing statis- 
tics which entice capital. 

Cotemporaneous with Mr. Perkins's article, William D. Galla- 
gher published one, in which he said : 

" To supply the demand for select current reading, the East- 
ern States have four quarterly reviews, twelve or fifteen month- 
lies, and something like a score of weekly literary papers, 
together with twenty or thirty large miscellaneous sheets of the 
family class. The Western States, with an equal population, 
have — what? Three specimens of the family class, one weekly 
literary paper, and three monthly magazines. * * * Eight 
millions of people, one in soil, territory and government, looking 
to another eight millions to furnish a literature. Independent 
in every thing else, the West relies upon the Eastern States and 
upon the old world for literary aliment." 

These words of complaint, from Mr. Gallagher's pen, apply 
with more significance to the year 1859 than they did to 1839. 
With our increase of population, with the development of our 
material resources, Atlantic literary preponderance keeps pace. 
Markets for our grain and salt and iron are not only brought 
near to us, but literary circles are made our immediate neigh- 
bors, and without taking the trouble to ask whether the ability 
to supply our literary demands exists, if we want a poem, an 
address, or a lecture, our first impulse is to telegraph for second- 
hand wares, which some society over the mountains or over the 
ocean has put aside. 

If our best policy requires that writers and preachers and 
lecturers for the West should have a seaboard indorsement, 
why does it not require that we should send to salt water for 
our Governors, our Senators and Representatives. Doughfaces 
are at a discount now, and specimens plastic enough to answer 
any tone in the public voice anxiously await orders. 

Popular sentiment requires that those who come among us 
with strange words in their mouths and strange manners and 



16 ADISCOURSE. 

customs and opinions in their daily work and pleasure, should 
adapt themselves to their new relations, forgetting not home and 
country, but prejudices and preferences which better life and 
wider opportunity rebuke. Why has not the same policy ap- 
plication to him who crosses only mountains as well as to him 
who crosses oceans ; not to disparagement of what is beyond 
mountains or seas, that is worthy of regard, but only in rebuke 
©f neglect of what is here, simply because it " comes out of 
Nazareth?" 

It cannot be argued, that absence of liberal encouragement 
demonstrates unworthiness in the literature which the West has 
inspired. That argument would condemn the opinions of the 
present, upon many standard works of art and literature, and it 
would overthrow established doctrines of philosophy and re- 
ligion. 

Posterity takes delight in reversing the judgments which co- 
temporary jealousy or partiality placed upon the efforts of noto- 
rious or obscure men. It is full time that, out of self-respect, 
the West awarded to its pioneer writers the poor justice of ac- 
knowledgment of service, and encourage thereby strivings of 
Genius, which shall accomplish what is worthy of the example 
of the past, the inspiration of the present, and the promise of 
the future. 

Periodical literature in the West twenty years ago was supe- 
rior, incomparably, in all most-to-be-desired qualities, to that 
which, associated with fashion plates and baby dresses, with pat- 
terns for night-caps and recipes for the toilet, may now be found 
on the center tables of every model parlor in any western town ; 
and yet the " Western Review," projected at Lexington, 
Kentucky, in 1819, by William Gibbes Hunt, a scholar and an 
industrious, tasteful writer; the "Western Monthly Re- 
view," by Timothy Flint, begun in Cincinnati in 1827; the 
" Illinois Magazine," started at Vandalia, Illinois, by James 
Hall, in 1829 ; the " Hesperian," conducted by Wm. D. Gal- 



ADISCOURSE. 17 

lagher and Otway Curry, at Columbus, Ohio, in 1828 ; the 
" Literary Review," at Cincinnati, by L. A. Hine and E. Z. 
Judson, in 1844; the "Western Literary Messenger," by 
George Brewster, at Columbus, Ohio, in 1850 ; the " Genius 
OF THE West," by Howard Durbin, in 1854; and all of later 
date, " good, bad, and indifferent," whether of Ohio, Indiana, Il- 
linois, Kentucky, or Michigan, failed /or ivant of support^ within 
three years of their origin, excepting the " Ladies' Reposi- 
tory," of Cincinnati, first published in 1841 ; which, indeed, is 
not to be considered independently a literary magazine, because 
it is the favorite of a powerful church. 

It is universally conceded among those who know the charac- 
ter of literary enterprises in the West, that had merit been all 
that was needed to insure success, the editors and proprietors of 
at least half a score of magazines and newspapers had been 
handsomely rewarded. With them were associated, as writers, 
all the men and w^omen whose names I have mentioned, and 
many others worthy to be mentioned ; and in their columns were 
published Essays, Reviews, Tales, Sketches, and Poems, which 
were not only indorsed by New York and Boston, but which 
were republished in Europe, and have found their way into 
school books that are universally popular. 

If neither ability, scholarship, industry, enthusiasm nor tact 
was wanting, why have literary enterprises, on the sunset side 
of the Alleghanies, been signally disastrous ? It cannot be de- 
nied, that a majority of the projectors of these enterprises did 
not command the pecuniary resources necessary to establish a 
business requiring the cultivation of confidence ; but, after all, 
the chief cause lies where I have, more than once, traced it — in 
servile dependence upon the Atlantic States, and in ungenerous 
distrust of home energy, home honesty, and home capacity. 

Now, I protest against the thoughtlessness, or selfishness, or 
jealousy, which exemplifies, in modern times, the New Testa- 
ment axiom, that " a prophet is not without honor save in his 
2 



18 ADISCOURSE. 

own country," with full knowledge that home missions are now 
neglected for foreign ones, in a variety of forms and circumstan- 
ces ; but I am persuaded that literature bears such relations to 
society, that home encouragement may enlarge enjoyment of the 
remote in origin, and while affording gratification of curiosity for 
what comes to us from abroad, correct tastes, and develop facul- 
ties which can reciprocate borrowed blessings. 

Literature, in the most enlarged sense, is cosmopolitan. It is 
a law of its encouragement, that home attention prepares most 
directly and thoroughly for just appreciation of whatever another 
people produces. 

The association may appear odd, indeed incongruous, but 
whenever I see a farm-house in one of our western valleys with- 
out the protecting shade of a native tree, to tell, in its silent 
majesty, how the wilderness and its traditions have passed away, 
I am reminded of that spirit of indifference which has chilled the 
development of an individual literature, fitly representing not 
only the stirring times when the Hunter and the Indian watched 
each other, or the Pioneer took his rifle into his new fields, when 
he had seed to sow or grain to reap ; but later times, in which a 
society, composed of conflicting elements of character, needs the 
guidance of genius, that has studied its peculiarities, and appre- 
ciates its opportunities. 

I knew a farmer in Northern Ohio, who had a promising son- 
in-law, on whom he wished to make a marriage settlement. 
Accordingly he presented him with a corner lot, on which the 
native forest yet stood. The young man, wanting to build a 
house on his property, made a " clearing." When the house 
was ready to be occupied it was thickly surrounded with stumps 
of trees, which may have sheltered the mound-builders, who 
perhaps roamed these valleys before the red man twanged his 
bow in their solitudes. Where checkered shadows had changed 
and mingled for centuries, not a foot of shade protected the in- 
truding house. Contemplating the ruin he had made, and 



ADISCOURSE, VQ 

knowing what the example of his father and his father-in-law 
had been, he planted a few puny shade and fruit trees in his 
garden and before his door ; and consoled with the attention 
they required, the young man did not once think what a fool he 
had been, when, without forecast, he destroyed the monarchs of 
the woods, among whose boughs the winds of ancient time had 
sighed. 

He was a blockhead, to be sure ; but he was as wise as hie 
neighbors, among whom forethought had been wanting, for ma- 
terial beauty and the enjoyment of natural poetry. 

Destruction, as well as cultivation, was a law of necessity in 
the pioneer period ; but, while one was exercised without judg- 
ment in the material world, the other, without discretion, has 
been neglected in the mental ; and, therefore, precedent leads 
social circles to overlook what would win them honor and confer 
happiness, as precedent led the young man, of whom I complain, 
to be wasteful of what would have afforded his home generous 
protection, and himself refined satisfaction. 

Everybody says, " A narrow man is the fancy farmer who 
removes the monarch oak, or beech, or elm, to surround his resi- 
dence with the alianthus, the catalpa, and other exotics ; " but 
quite as narrow is the fashionable hero-worshiper, who encour- 
ages support in literature, of that for which curiosity is the chief 
stimulus, while native talent and ingenuity go abroad begging. 

The spreading catalpa, the tall poplar, the luxuriant alianthus, 
adorn our country gardens and beautify our town walks ; but he 
who would strip all our hills of their native crowns and plant 
upon them these exotics, would act the part of a lunatic. Yet 
he would be no more insane than is he who, in art and litera- 
ture, worships strange models, with affected or acquired contempt 
for whatever originates among his own people. 

Why does America hold high rank for native ingenuity in 
mechanism, and for energy in trade and commerce ? Reward 
waits upon effort. Honor and fame offer immediate premuiums 



20 ADISCOURSE. 

for triumphs. It was logical that the most direct needs of the 
nation should first gain satisfaction ; but every energy of every 
circle in America, need not now be wholly and exclusively de- 
voted to what will augment material wealth and power. The 
amenities of life, the quiet advantages of contemplative pursuits, 
are more valuable, though less imperative, than material wealth 
or power — more valuable not only to individuals but to commu- 
nities, because what they accomplish has perennial significance 
for good, furnishing the standards by which the future always 
estimates the real greatness of the past. 

If we trace the paths along which the literary hopes of the 
past in the West are buried, we find numerous neglected graves, 
around which long processions have gathered. The character- 
istics, trials, failures, or successes of even the chief mourners in 
these processions, I will not be permitted to sketch in this Lec- 
ture. Several evenings would be required to present a satisfact- 
ory review of the poetical, historical, legendary, legal, medical, 
theological, and political literature, which has been creditable to 
our society. Only in a course of Lectures, would I undertake 
to mention, with the thinnest outline of their productions, all the 
respectable writers of the West. I refer to them in a body now 
for the purpose of connecting the present with the past, in a few 
general facts which, in my opinion, possess distinct importance. 

From Rufus Wilmot Griswold's " Survey of the Literature of 
the United States," in three volumes, regarded by the most in- 
fluential critics as standard authority, the analytic inquirer 
learns, that whatever forms of inspiration may repose in the 
grand old forests, or along the mighty rivers, or upon the solemn 
mountains, or on the broad plains of the West — however fre- 
quently, in the old time gone, its groves may have been made 
musical with the unwritten cadences of aboriginal poetry, it has 
not yet been productive of pale-faced writers. 

In his volume on " The Prose Writers of America," Mr. Gris- 



ADISCOURSE. 21 

wold recognizes, with biographical notices, only two men who 
are identified with Western Literature. 

First : Timothy Flint, born in Massachusetts, who came to 
the West as a Missionary ; and after ten years' hard service in 
that capacity, chose Literature as his profession — ^his exclusive 
vocation — and wrote and pubUshed with such poor pecuniary 
success, though a man of industry and rare ability, with a glow 
of poetic fervor in his style, that he has never had a legitimate 
successor. 

Second : James Hall, born in Pennsylvania, who, like Mr. 
Flint, was a magazine editor and a writer of romances, and val- 
uable works of history and statistics ; but, unlike him, chose 
banking instead of writing for his vocation, and has had many 
successors, legitimate and illegitimate. 

Incidentally, Mr, Griswold mentions F. W. Thomas, author 
of the novel, " Clinton Bradshaw," and other works of merit ; 
and Morgan Neville, author of " Mike Fink, the Boatman," a 
forgotten romance. But, with these exceptions, the student of 
Literature could never ascertain, from "standard authority," that 
there had been prose writers in Ohio, or Indiana, or Kentucky, 
or Illinois, or Michigan. 

Toward the Poets of the West, Mr. Griswold has been more 
liberal. He recognizes Micah P. Flint and Albert Pike, from 
Massachusetts; F. W. Thomas, from Rhode Island; G. D. 
Prentice, from Connecticut ; Wm. D. Gallagher, from Pennsyl- 
vania; F. Casby, born in Kentucky, and Otway Curry and G. 
W. Cutter, born in Ohio; Annie P. Dinnies, from South Caro- 
lina ; Laura M. Thurston and Lydia Jane Pierson, from Con- 
necticut ; Rebecca S. Nichols, from New Jersey ; Amelia Welby 
and Margaret S. Bailey, from Virginia ; Sophia H. Oliver and 
Sarah T. Bolton, born in Kentucky ; Frances A. and Metta 
Victoria Fuller, from New York, and Alice and Phebe Cary, 
born in Ohio. 

It will be observed, that among twenty poets, Ohio has orig- 



23^ A DI SCOURS E. 

inal claim to four — two of the masculine and two of the feminine 
gender — while Kentucky has one masculine and two feminine ; 
but that neither Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, or Missouri, is recog- 
nized as having either a native prose writer or poet. 

Only those men who, writing prose in the West, published it 
at the East, have been considered by Mr. Griswold worthy of 
notice; consequently a large number, whom the people of the 
West should honor and respect, and who deserve to be intro- 
duced to every student of American Literature, are grossly 
slighted. Among them, I may take time to mention Daniel 
Drake, the first student of medicine in Cincinnati, and the first 
man who, from the West, called the aid of Literature to the 
development of the natural resources of the Ohio basin — who, 
during a long life of remarkable activity, was the earnest friend 
of all intellectual progress ; and who, besides an invaluable work 
on the *' Diseases of the Mississippi Valley," left influences 
which must exert great force in the settlement of the principles 
which are, hereafter, to guide the mental and physical life of our 
people ; — James H. Perkins, a man of great soul and high poetic 
temperament, who did signal service to the historical literature 
of America, and who was the author of Tales and Sketches, 
which have had as wide circulation as the American press could 
give them ; — Benjamin F. Drake, author of a " Life of Black 
Hawk," and a "Life of Tecumseh;" requiring laborious re- 
search, and throwing much light upon the careers and charac- 
ters of the great representative men of the forest; — E. D. 
Mansfield, whose works on Politics, Education and Biography, 
entitle him to most respectful consideration : not to speak of 
Burnet and Hildreth of Ohio, Marshall and Butler of Kentucky, 
Dillon of Indiana, Ford of Illinois, and others, in a list longer 
than I dare now repeat, who have made contributions to history 
no less important than many to which the "standard authority" 
I have spoken of, pays respectful deference. 



ADISCOURSE. 23 

But Mr. Griswold is not alone in his disregard of the literary 
claims of the West. 

A " Cyclopedia of American Literature " was published in 
New York in 1855.* Its editors are Everet A. and G. L. 
Ducykink, who for several years conducted the Literary World, 
a recognized organ of literary information and discussion. They 
claim most decidedly to represent the literature of the nation, 
past and present. Let us inquire into their fairness respecting 
« out West." 

Twenty-three persons, whose names are, or have been, identi- 
fied with western literature, are recognized in the Cyclopedia — 
sixteen asprose writers, and seven as poets. Among these per- 
sons are Lewis Cass, Thos. H. Benton, Henry Clay, Dr. Chas. 
Caldwell and Bishop Philander Chase, but neither Otway Curry, 
George W. Cutter, E. D. Mansfield, John B. Dillon, Thos. H. 
Shreve, Judge Jacob Burnet, S. P. Hildreth, Timothy Walker 
of Cincinnati, L B. Walker the theologian. Rev. Edward 
Thomson of Delaware, W. W. Fosdick, Rebecca S. Nichols, 
Sarah T. Bolton, Metta Victoria Fuller, Mrs. Ruter Defour, or 
Annie P. Dinnies, are regarded with the briefest mention. 
They, and all of lesser note who write " out West," independent 
of certain city cliques, are even behind Franklin Pierce, whose 
name indeed appears in the index, because Nathaniel Hawthorne 
wrote his biography. 

The Cyclopedia recognizes two poets native to Ohio — Alice 
and Phebe Cary ; one poet native to Kentucky — William Ross 
Wallace; one prose writer native to Illinois — John L. McCon- 
nell, author of the novel " Talbot and Vernon," and one prose 
writer native to Kentucky — C. W. Webber, the "Hunter Natur- 
alist;" but with these exceptions, the world is left in ignorance, 
so far as the Cyclopedia of American Literature can leave it, of 
native talent for authorship in any Western State. 

* By Charles Scribner. 



24 ADISCOURSE. 

The Ducykmks have done justice to a few men and women 
whom Griswold overlooks, and they have slighted others whom 
he recognizes. But, without fear of successful contradiction, I 
affirm that neither Griswold's Survey of American Literature, 
in three volumes, nor Ducykink's Cyclopedia, in two volumes, 
nor both together, can be given credit for due respect to west- 
ern authorship, while they exhibit active diligence in " making 
a good show " for all the giants and many of the dwarfs of east- 
ern authordom. 

Looking outside of mere literary circles, let us inquire of east- 
ern fairness toward western men. In 1857, Appleton's publish- 
ing house of New York issued two American Cyclopedias — one 
of Eloquence, one of Wit and Humor. 

In the Cyclopedia of American Eloquence, the only western 
man mentioned,' excepting Henry Clay, is Tecuraseh, but eastern 
men not half so well known for eloquence as Tecumseh's con- 
queror at Tippecanoe, have the honor of biographical notices, 
with select passages from their speeches. 

In the Cyclopedia of " Wit and Humor," something nearer 
justice is done western talent, because Micah P. Flint, Geo. W. 
Bradbury, James Hall, Sol. Smith, Geo. D. Prentice, J. M. 
Field (Everpoint), J. S. Robb (Solitaire), J. L. McConnell, and 
J. V. Watson are honorably mentioned ; but had the same dili- 
gence in the pursuit of wit and humor been exercised for the 
west that has been for the east, I could quote other names from 
Mr. Burton's Cyclopedia. 

Permit still another illustration of the fact that either on ac- 
count of ignorance or of illiberal spirit, critics and compilers 
"down east" do injustice to the "great west." 

In 1858, D. Appleton & Co. published ^^The Household Book 
of Poetry ^^ compiled and edited by Charles A. Dana, one of the 
editors of the New York Tribune. In his preface the editor 
says that he undertook to " comprise within the bounds of a 
single volume whatever is truly beautiful and admirable among 



ADISCOURSE. 25 

the minor poems of the English language," and he claims to 
have developed " a considerable store of treasures hitherto less 
known to the general public than to scholars and to limited cir- 
cles," from " careful and prolonged research in the current re- 
ceptacles of fugitive poets." He claims, also, that it has been 
his constant endeavor " to exercise a catholic as well as a severe 
taste ; and to judge every piece by its poetical merit solely, 
without regard to the name, nationality or epoch of the author." 

It is not too much to say that the people of the West who are 
expected — at least several thousand of them — to be purchasers 
of Mr. Dana's book, are familiar with poems, from writers within 
their circle of acquaintance, which are quite as good as many of 
those that have been selected by him as poems of Nature — of 
Childhood — of Friendship — of Love — of Ambition — of Come- 
dy — of Tragedy and Sorrow — of the Imagination — of Senti- 
ment and of Reflection — or of Religion. 

The poems for which we make this claim are not "fugitive 
pieces," merely, that have gone the "rounds of the papers," but 
may be found in books with which, it is fair to presume, Mr. 
Dana, as an editor of a leading journal, if not as the editor of a 
book of household poetry, ought to be familiar. Alice Cary, 
Mrs. R. S. Nichols, Mrs. S. T. Bolton, Geo. D. Prentice, W. D. 
Gallagher, James H. Perkins, John B. Dillon, Geo. W. Cutter, 
Otway Curry, F. W. Thomas, and others we might name, who 
are yet young, are not poets of mere local reputation, or authors 
of " fugitive pieces," only. None of them are quoted by Mr. 
Dana. The only person quoted who is recognized as western, 
is Mrs. Amelia Welby. Her " Old Made " is given as a poem 
of sentiment and reflection. 

We invite the curious to look at Mr. Dana's book, and then 
consider whether Alice Cary's "Pictures of Memory" — George 
D. Prentice's "Lines to my Wife," or "The Closing Year"— 
Otway Curry's " Kingdom Come," or " The Goings Forth of 
God" — F. W. Thomas's song, "Tis said that Absence Conquers 



26 A D I S C OURS E. 

Love" — W. D. Gallagher's "August," or his lines to Autumn, 
in his poem on " The Miami Woods," or his " Conservative," or 
"Laborer," or Coates Kinney's "Rain on the Roof," are not 
quite as good as much written in New York or Boston, or there- 
abouts, to which " Household Poetry " gives consideration. 

While making these analyses of unfairness to talent identified 
with the West, I do not forget that whatever may be true re- 
specting lack of information, or partiality, on the part of " stand- 
ard authorities " for American literature, the fact remains clear 
that the great central valley has not been signally distinguished 
by native genius in poetry, romance, or history, not because 
talent or genius has been wanting — not because inspiration has 
been absent, but chiefly because repose has been denied — time 
to individuals for study and labor — time to the people for mel- 
lowing influences which impress popular opinion with respect 
for the noblest forms of mental force, and stimulate inquiry for 
delights from a calm and lofty sphere. 

The pioneer period of the North-west was remarkably a 
period of all-absorbing material demand, and it was brief. 

Sixty-six years ago* the first newspaper was published in the 
North-west; fifty years agof the first book was printed here. 
Of all the men and women who have labored significantly for 
literature in the great valley, not ten have been called to the 
higher life. The others are yet with us, and it is not too late to 
show them that they are cherished, and will be remembered 
with gratitude. 

We may regret that our literary pioneers did not meet wider 
encouragement and ampler reward, but we need not complain, 
unless we take care that the future does not have reason to 
complain of us. Knowing what the past has been, we may con- 
fidently appeal to the present for the future. 

What has the past been? Discouraging, as I have shown it — 

* 1793. t 1809. 



ADISCOURSE. 27 

disheartening, unjust to enterprise and industry which aimed to 
enrich its mental character, but opulent, bountiful in all materi- 
als for poetry, for romance, and for history. 

The west has a new opportunity. This central valley is the 
heart of the Republic, and it may give tone to the entire system. 

It is the glory of our institutions, not only that they open op- 
portunity for the forming hand, but that they educate the in- 
forming spirit. Removed from the direct influences of the old 
world — with intimate relations to the South, to the East, and to 
the Great West, beyond the Mississippi — with a past mysteri- 
ous, awe-inspiring — remarkable for potent results — with a pres- 
ent active, buoyant, intelligent — with a future full of promise, if 
the central valley, of the heart of which the homes of this au- 
dience are a part, must continue subordinate in any of the fun- 
damental activities of civilization, it will only be because the 
people are untrue to themselves. 

I speak advisedly when I say there is brilliant promise for 
noble achievement in all the highest walks of literature, in 
native mind which now asks direction. 

As citizens, as friends, best policy and noblest principle de- 
mand of us that we require society to begin to make whomever 
has a thought of value, understand that at home recognition will 
be given it, whether it is good for the soil, or the shop, the office 
or the parlor — whether it shall culminate in a plow, a new 
motor, a poem, an oration, a history or a statue. 

Provided with capabilities for equal rights, in opportunity, for 
all its citizens, let the West aspire to set the glorious example 
which just Republicanism contemplates — the successful working 
of a social system based on goodness and truth among men, who 
cultivate the " memorable, the progressive, and the beautiful," 
whether they are what the world calls workers or thinkers. 

If tradition be credited, there was a literature in the West 
before the rifle's report and the woodman's ax displaced the war- 
whoop and the twang of the bow — ^before smiling fields appeared, 



28 ADISCOURSE. 

where deep groves had for centuries welcomed sunshine, and 
invited showers. 

If the red men had a touch of poetry in their manners and 
customs, as well as oratory in their councils, from character 
stamped by the inspiration of nature, shall white men fail, out of 
civilization, to attract regard for higher achievements than those 
which satisfy mere physical necessities ? 

The West has now shaping for homogeneousness, elements of 
character impressed with the individuality of its own early period, 
and with ancient civilization from the maturest nations, and all 
being quickened by the spirit of modern progress — commerce 
having its pressing demands satisfied, trade and manufactures 
enjoying far-reaching triumphs of genius — circumstances con- 
spire to demand of the people of to-day, literary development 
which shall bring to us honor and respect as abundantly as no- 
toriety for wheat and whisky, for corn and pork, brings now to 
us dollars and dimes. 

The epic, the lyric, the pastoral, repose in tradition, and in 
legend and story — in groves and prairies — in rivers and cascades 
— in fruitful valleys, and on picturesque hills ; history lives in 
our progress; romance is an ever-pervading spirit of our valleys 
and water-courses and hill-sides ; but it will remain unwritten 
history, or poetry, or romance, except under spasmodic influen- 
ces, or with spasmodic effort, and the people of the West will 
win scornful censure, unless they encourage, with pen and purse, 
and good will and good words, instrumentalities which are com- 
petent to individualize a Western Literature. 

Literature is chief among teachers ; it preserves the past and 
cultivates the present. Its development is highest among a 
people's honors. That people which invites rich gifts, in poetry 
and history and romance, from all other people, taking no pains 
to reciprocate favors and cancel obligations, is weaker and 
meaner than an individual who will accept presents, to which 
neither courtesy nor charity entitles him. 



ADISCOUKSE. 29 

Young Men's Literary Societies, with libraries and lectures, 
discussions and essays, have been organized in nearly all of our 
towns and cities. They are an outgrowth of intelligent senti- 
ment, fostered in our colleges, seminaries, and high schools. 
Professors and Teachers, in a large degree, command their in- 
terest and usefulness for the future. 

From college halls and school rooms, in which compositions 
are read and discussions and declamations are heard, convictions 
and incentives may go out, which, in the next generation, can 
accomplish for a home literature all I have demanded — all I 
have hoped — in this Discourse. 

May I not appeal to this audience for thoughtful consideration 
of what I have urged — for executive interest and local pride in 
a local Literature? Societies, such as that I now address, are 
potent for literary culture. They have weighty responsibility. 
They can stimulate local pride in local poetry, and romance and 
history. Let each member bear actively in mind, that it is 
nobler to develop new thought than to circulate old ; that the 
capacity which produces is grander than that which enjoys. 



C^e frotettiSr^ f^oliq in ITita'atttn. 



DISCOURSE 



SOCIAL AND MORAL ADVANTAGES 



CULTIVATION OF LOCAL LITERATURE. 



WILLIAM T. COGGESHALL, 

OHIO STATK LlBR2RU?f. 



Delivered before the Beta Theta Pi Society of Ohio TJniyersity 
at the 54th Commencement, June 22d, 1858. 



COLUMBUS, OHIO: 

FOLLETT, FOSTER AND COMPANY. 

1859. 



BOOKS FOR THE WEST. 



Tlie Poetry of" tlie "VTest, 



Tlie Prose "W^r iters of tlie "West. 



Tlie Orators of tlie ~West, 



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COLUMBUS J OHIOj 

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irL I=»iress. 



THE POETS 



AND 



POETRY OF THE WEST. 



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